Posted on June 29, 2026 by Ender Finol and Maria Bolanos Moreno
How did you first get involved with the Aeronautics and Rocket Club (ARC)?
It was actually by accident! I was mistaken for someone else and ended up telling me about a robotics club. When I went looking for the room, I walked into the wrong one, which turned out to be the rocket club. My first thought was that this was way cooler than robotics, and I was immediately excited to get involved.
What skills or experiences did you gain from ARC that were the most valuable?
The most valuable thing was getting to work with real products and developed project management skills. It’s very different from learning theory in the classroom; you’re suddenly dealing with actual timelines, limited resources, and hands-on problem-solving. You can read about engineering all you want, but you’re never going to get it perfectly right the first time. ARC taught me how to handle that.
What motivated you to major in Mechanical Engineering?
I was planning to go to law school when I was still in high school because that’s what my family wanted. Still, I decided to enlist in the Army instead, as a medic, to pursue my dream of eventually becoming a pilot through the Warrant Officer program. I was injured early on, which led to disability that made me ineligible for combat or becoming a pilot. After that happened, I figured that if I couldn’t fly them, I might as well build them. I started looking into mechanical engineering programs, landed a government research internship in the field, and really enjoyed it. So, I decided to transfer from a multidisciplinary pre-law track to the Mechanical Engineering program here at UTSA.
Did you always know you wanted to pursue engineering, or was there something specific that influenced that decision?
Not at all. It wasn’t until after my military career that it became clear I wanted to be more involved with aircraft. Having the opportunity through that internship really confirmed that mechanical engineering was the direction I wanted to go. That experience made everything click for me.
What excites you most about your future career?
I’m excited about deepening my knowledge in the areas I’ve already been exposed to and eventually using that expertise to create something genuinely new. Right now, I’m in the phase of building on what’s already been done, learning the foundation. But later in my career, I want to be a pioneer of something that hasn’t been done before. That’s the goal.
Do you have any recommendations for students going to graduate school?
Persistence, without a doubt. I definitely don’t have a typical student background. I began my academic journey while still on active duty in the Army, which brought a lot of setbacks, both academically and personally. So, the biggest lesson I can share is this: just keep picking yourself back up. In engineering, especially, you are going to hit walls constantly. The students who make it are the ones who keep throwing themselves at those walls until something gives.
At what point did you start considering graduate school?
I started thinking about it pretty early on. During my internship, I worked alongside a lot of Ph.D. researchers, and I just really loved the environment, the flow of research, the work culture, and the process of developing new capabilities and technologies. I found it genuinely fun. And I’m not someone who gets frustrated when things don’t work the first time; I actually enjoy figuring out why something didn’t work and how to fix it. That mindset felt like a natural fit for research.
What was the biggest challenge in transitioning to graduate school?
It’s just so different from undergrad in ways I didn’t expect. I knew the coursework would be harder; I was prepared for that. What I wasn’t prepared for was not knowing anyone. As an undergrad, I had a social circle, study groups, and familiar places to work. In graduate school, you’re basically rebuilding all of that from scratch, and I really wasn’t expecting how much that would affect me.
What are you currently researching, and what excites you most about it?
Since I am in my 1st semester, I haven’t gotten involved with a ton of projects yet. The main one right now is contributing to a startup working on CubeSats, essentially payloads that articulate panels for a variety of applications. Beyond that, I’m also looking into internships for next year focused on plasma thrusters, which is an area I’m really excited about.
— Ender Finol and Maria Bolanos Moreno
This article was written by Ender Finol and Maria Bolanos Moreno
